8 Fail-Safe Ways To Love Your Body

As a women you are never taught to love your body, quite the opposite.

With the media bombarding us with images of what we should look like, it’s hard not to think you need to change your body.

All my life I have struggled with my body image.

When I was younger I was super skinny and I was very flat-chested! I used to get teased a lot and people said I looked like a boy!!

I remember I used to binge on chocolate bars to try and put weight on but it never worked.

I always wanted to get a boob job, so I could feel more attractive and look more womanly.

I hated being skinny and not being curvy until I put on some weight. After having my second child I went up a dress size and finally had boobs but all I wanted was to be skinny again!

Oh how I miss my small boobs!

It seems the grass is always greener.

So over the last year, I have been working at loving my body, no matter what shape or weight it is. I feel like this is the only way to be at peace with my body.

Otherwise, I will never be happy with it and I’ll always want to change the way I look.

Here are 8 things you can do to Start to Love Your Body:

1. Be Grateful For Your Body

Our bodies are constantly working to keep us healthy and alive. 

Isn’t that amazing!!

The more gratitude we can show to our bodies, the better we will feel about them. 

I did an exercise in my Mindfulness course where we walked around the room and really paid attention to our feet. 

Paying attention to how much our feet do, they support us, really helped me feel a lot of gratitude towards them.  When we notice that our bodies are working for us, not against us, we can really start to appreciate and love them.

2. Listen To Your Body

Our bodies are always telling us things, if only we would listen to them. 

Instead of complaining about the aches and pains we have or how tired we feel, try and see this as a message that something needs to change. 

Maybe you need more rest or to slow down more or do you need to look after yourself more?

When we listen to what our bodies are trying to tell us, we can work with them. 

So if your feeling sick all the time, stop and figure out whats going on.

3. Take Care Of Your Body

This is so important, especially if you’re a mum. We spend so much time taking care of our children, we can often forget about ourselves. 

Get enough rest and sleep, eat healthy food, fit in more self-care and do exercise, even if it’s just walking every day. 

Think about what your body needs right now to be healthy and schedule it into your day. 

Figure out what foods work best for your body and eat more of them. 

Workaround your cycle, so you know the best time is to do certain activities. This is probably one of the best things you can do for your body!!

Taking care of our bodies is an act of self-love!!

4. Mirror Work

OK this one might seem a bit scary but it’s totally worth it!!

Start looking at your body in the mirror more and say all the things you love about your body!

I’ve been doing this every time I have a bath or shower and trust me, it gets easier.

Most of the time we don’t even look at our bodies and we have a distorted view about them. 

The more comfortable we feel looking at ourselves NAKED in the mirror, the more confident we will feel.

Remember Gok Wan’s show How To Look Good Naked?! 

He used mirror work to help the women on the show love their bodies. His mission was to help every woman love her body, no matter what size they were. 

(If you haven’t heard of the show, I highly recommend watching it)

“You have been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens”

Louise Hay

5. Connect With Your Body

It’s so important to feel connected to our bodies.

There are some great ways to do this. The best one I find is Yoga, especially Kundalini Yoga. 

Mindfulness is a great way too, the best meditation to do is the body scan. You simply scan each part of the body, bringing your awareness to it. You can use a guided mediation or do it by yourself. 

6. Watch Your Self Talk

I’ve been doing this for a while now, especially around my teenage daughter, I don’t want her to pick up my negative beliefs around my body.

We always get more of what we focus on, so if you’re always saying “I’m too fat”, you will always feel fat. 

Our words are very powerful, so become aware of what you say about yourself. 

So next time you catch yourself saying something negative about your body decide you no longer need this thought. 

Replace it with a better thought. For example, I used to say “I’m tired” all the time and every time I caught myself doing this I would change it to “I lovely do everything I can to assist my body in maintaining perfect health”. It really helped me get out of that rut of feeling tired all the time. 

7. Don’t Listen To The Media

The media take great pleasure in making women hate their bodies, it’s how they sell to us. 

When we see all these “perfect” images in the media, they make us feel like we need to change ourselves to look like these models. 

But here is the deal, these models do NOT represent real women and most of them are Photoshopped.  There are even companies out there that use Computer Generated bodies in there advertising. 

How can we compete with that!!

You don’t have to!! 

Stop buying the mags filled with these images, when you see them on social media ask yourself “Is this image real?” The majority of the time there NOT, so stop wasting your time comparing yourself to these unrealistic images!!

8. Surround Yourself With Images Of Realistic Bodies

On that note, it’s better to start surrounding yourself with images of realistic bodies. This will help you see that you are normal and the more you appreciate other women’s bodies, the more you will appreciate yours!

I have a Pinterest board filled with images, check it out HERE!

You can follow my board or even create your own. I try to add new images every day!!

So that’s my 8 tips to help you love your body. Let me know in the comments below if this helped and any other body confidence tips you have. 

Stay beautiful

Love 

P.S If you love a good challenge, then download my FREE self-love journaling challenge HERE!